Goddesses Like Them
by Kelly Greyer
Summary: Storm is angry at Scott for the way that he mourns Jean. He could never mourn her the way she deserved because he never really understood her for all that she was. But goddesses like Storm and Phoenix were never meant to be understood.


He hasn't noticed that she's entered the room. She didn't make her presence known either, she would have hoped that he could pull himself together for a mere second and make himself available to the world. But no, there he sat in his silence and his stillness, harboring an entire soul in his head. Clutching her to him even after she's gone, holding onto her memory for himself. An anger rises up in Ororo's spine.

As if he is the only one that has a right to miss her.

Ororo had talked to Logan. They talked about Jean and he had confessed to her mostly what she of course already knew, but he had told her of the kiss that they had shared. A kiss that he had at first stolen but was granted forgiveness and kissed back for, only to be turned into a thief again a second later. Jean was…confusing. But here now she felt the need to throw that at the man before her, a man who sat hunched over remembering and crying, still clutching onto her. Maybe had he known he would have gotten angry enough to move himself, maybe even confront Logan. But Ororo forcefully shook the urge away; anger was too easy, it was so easy.

"There's a world outside these walls you know." Ororo crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back on the frame of his door. She tried to keep the snide tone hidden in her voice, if only for the little respect that she had left for Scott.

"Is there?" Ororo rolled her eyes at his comment. He would like to pretend that life didn't go on without Jean, but it does, and Ororo knew it. She takes a breath as she walks forward, every step a reminder to the earth that she is the goddess that owns it. On his bed sits a picture frame. Scott stares forward from his place seated on the edge of the bed as Ororo snatches the frame up, annoyance behind every muscle as she moves.

The picture inside is of Jean. Though Ororo didn't remember the day, she remembered that sly look on Jean's face, as it was never far away. That insidious smile that tugged at the corner of her lips, mouth slightly open ready to prove a point. The small quirk of her eyebrow, the slightest tilt of her head downward, looking over everyone in there impotence that could never rise up to touch her flames. A look that Jean had never viewed Ororo from for she had her own that matched perfectly. People didn't understand Jean and Ororo when they were together.

But Goddesses like her and Jean were never meant to be understood.

Ororo throws the picture frame back down to his side and it almost slides down the bed and to the floor but Scott is quick to catch it.

"You can still move." Ororo huffs out. Scott's jaw is set and is posture is tense now; he can smell the cold rain of the coming storm.

"Is there something you need Storm?" He doesn't want her on his back, but that was exactly where she was about to stand.

"How long are you going to sit in here feeling sorry for yourself Scott?" Scott's gaze is to the ground as he looks away from Ororo for only a second but then back at her, only tilting his head enough to see her legs and feet.

"You can hold onto your anger 'Ro. Use it as a crutch for as long as you want to, but please, don't force it on me." Scott's voice wasn't pleading; the very same snide tone that Ororo was trying to push back was evident in his voice as he threw the subtle insult at her.

"And what are you holding onto?"

"I'm holding onto Jean."

Scott was quick to answer as he looked up at Ororo's face. She didn't have to see his eyes to tell that he was glaring. Ororo rubbed her jawline as she watched him sitting there. Maybe he thought he was holding onto her but what he was doing was insulting her. Insulting her memory by sitting there and using her as an excuse to shut down. Holding onto her with selfishness and fear to face the world again. Scared at the possibility of the world without his goddess there to guide him. Scott was not holding onto her, he was pushing who Jean really was away. Pushing her and all that she meant and stood for away, and it made Ororo's blood boil.

"Jean didn't die so that you could sit here and sulk Scott!" Ororo's words were deliberate as she cocked her head and practically yelled to his ear. "You think this is what she wanted?!"

"Alright stop Storm, don't stand there and try to tell **_me_** what Jean wanted." Scott turned away from her and Ororo blinked in shock, he really was trying to insult her wasn't he?

"You think you're the only one that loved her?" Disgust at his arrogant presumptions was dripping off of her tongue. "You think you're the only one who _knew_ her?!" Ororo's outrage grew and there was faint crackle of thunder that rolled over the sky, her face contorted in disgust and anger. "In case you don't remember Scott, I was there growing up with her too. I was with her before you even grew a pair and finally asked her out, and I was closer to her than you could have even dreamt to be. So don't flatter yourself Scott. You're not the only one that lost her, and you're not the only one hurting. And you know what Scott? You damn sure aren't the one hurting the most."

Silence settled into the air for a minute. While Scott would have liked to say something back to her, his better judgment told him not to. Because the fact of the matter was that yes, Ororo had always been there and yes, before him it was _always_ her.

Besides, he wasn't prepared for Hurricane Ororo.

"Why don't you pick yourself off the floor Scott, because yes, there is a world outside these walls." Ororo turned, her anger subsiding as she got closer to the exit and settled on his audacity.

And what nerve did that man have.

What could he even talk of Jean? What could he even know? Perhaps a memory strong and close to him, the sound of her voice, the rhythm of her sleeping chest. Sure, maybe. But Ororo, Storm, knew Jean for much more than he could ever see her as.

He nothing of bending people to their knees. Controlling so much more beyond you. Beyond a mutant gene or a human race. Jean and Ororo, Phoenix and Storm, was a bond molded with the clay of the earth and the heat of its core.

An intensity pulsing off of them that no one else could ever speak to.

And though Storm was shaken, she was not broken. She simply lets and insidious smile tug at the corner of her lips, mouth slightly open, eyebrow slightly quirked. The slightest tilt of her head downward, ready to look over everyone in there impotence that could never rise up to touch her. She knew she wasn't done and something told her Jean wasn't either.

Goddesses like them never were.


End file.
